Page 4 of Joker

We’re not getting out at all.

The sound of somebody pounding on my door at barely past sunrise is enough to make me consider homicide before I’m even fully awake.

I crack one eye open, stare at the ceiling for half a second, and seriously debate pretending I’m dead. That plan lasts until the pounding comes again, harder this time, followed by Blaze’s voice carrying through the wood.

“Get your ass up. Logan wants you in his office.”

I drag a hand over my face and sit up slow, my head already throbbing from too little sleep and too much whiskey the night before. The room is dim, the curtains still mostly drawn, the stale scent of last night hanging in the air with leather, smoke, and whatever cheap perfume the club girl I had last night wore. I plant my feet on the floor, reach for the jeans I left crumpled over the chair, and mutter a few things about Blaze’s mother that he definitely hears through the door.

“Yeah, yeah,” he calls back, not sounding offended in the slightest. “Tell me more while you get dressed.”

I pull my jeans on, grab a black T-shirt from the dresser, and shove my arms through my cut before heading for the door.When I yank it open, Blaze is leaning against the wall outside with a smirk that says he’s enjoying the fact that I look half feral.

“You look pretty,” he says.

“I look like I’m about to throw you across the room.”

“That too.”

He pushes off the wall and falls into step beside me as we head down the hall. The clubhouse is quieter than usual, the kind of quiet that only happens early, before the day gets moving and the place fills with engines, boots, voices, and whatever fresh chaos is happening. The old floorboards creak under our weight. I catch the smell of coffee strong enough to strip paint, and that does more to improve my mood than anything Blaze could say.

“Any idea what he wants?” I ask.

Blaze shrugs. “He asked for you. That’s all I got.”

That doesn’t mean much. Logan asks for all of us when he needs something done, but if he sends Blaze to drag me out of bed, it usually means he wants me moving sooner rather than later.

My first thought is cleanup. My second is that somebody somewhere has done something stupid, and I’ve drawn the short straw.

Wouldn’t be the first time.

We hit the main floor, and I turn toward the kitchen automatically. Blaze huffs a laugh when he realizes what I’m doing. “Office first.”

“I’m not talking to anybody before coffee.”

“You’ll live.”

“That remains to be seen.”

He’s still grinning when I shove past him, yank a mug from the cabinet, and fill it from the pot sitting on the warmer. It’s black, bitter, and hot enough to burn the skin off my tongue if I drink too fast. Perfect.

Logan’s office, sits toward the back of the clubhouse. The door is cracked open when we get there, and I don’t bother knocking. I push it wider with one hand and walk in with my mug in the other.

Logan is behind the desk, forearms braced on the wood, a file open in front of him. Shadow is slouched in one of the chairs against the wall, boots kicked out, looking way too awake for this hour. That alone tells me this isn’t random.

I glance between them. “You start every morning trying to ruin lives, or am I getting special treatment?”

Shadow’s mouth twitches. Logan doesn’t smile.

That’s my first real clue.

I shut the door behind me and take the empty chair across from the desk. Blaze hangs back by the wall, arms crossed, and I look at him once before turning back to Logan. “Well?”

Logan leans back in his chair, his expression giving away exactly nothing. “Need a favor.”

I stare at him over the rim of my mug. “That the word we’re using now?”

“Yes.”